Why would the City put people up at the President Inn?

The pictures of the President Inn that appear on the web are okay. They tout moderate priced rooms to tourists not looking to pay the price of a three, four or five star hotel stay when they come to DC. What the visitors got for their money (less than $100 per night) was a nightmare and terrible impression of the nation’s capitol to take back home. The visitors have swamped websites that rate hotels and motels with their criticisms of the President’s Inn on New York Avenue in North east. One woman from Oregon claims she became sick after sleeping in a bed with bugs. Others complain about the smell, the rats, the filth, graffiti and staff that sit behind bullet proof security glass at night. Did I mention the bars on the windows and the hookers that check in from time to time? After being turned away at the front desk we sent a cameraman into the President Inn. After he was checked into a second floor room with a camera hidden in a suitcase, he caught on tape much of what the tourists had complained about. There was also human hair left in the bed and the bathroom and evidence that a few fires had been set in his room. We later learned that the DC government had a contract with the managers of the Inn to house displaced families there. 12 homeless families had been staying at the President Inn this past March and April under the contract that calls for the city to pay the motel owners up to $75 thousand dollars per year. Who made this deal? After seeing our reports on TV and the Web, the director of the DC Emergency Management Agency sent an email out saying he would not longer be dispatching homeless families to the motel. The city also sent a team of Inspectors in to look for code violations. All this begs the question; did anybody visit the President Inn for the city before awarding this contract? Turns out, the DC Consumer Protection office was getting tourists complaints about the President Inn at the very same time that the Emergency management Agency was checking people into this place at city expense.